I've mentioned before that around the corner from where I live there's a little house that has been occupied by squatters for quite some time. Well, finally they've gone. I don't know when or how they were able to get them out. I certainly didn't hear any kind of scandal. As a matter of fact, I only realized they were gone when that metal building with the air conditioner, the blue metal portable toilet and the barriers appeared one day.
I decided to go out early this morning and take a photo, so that you can see how rundown this once lovely little villa was. You can see where a fire started a year or so ago on the second floor, not that that kept the squatters out for any longer than it took the firemen to put out the fire and the police to leave. It only meant they couldn't use that floor until things dried out. I hadn't noticed before that they'd changed the name from Villa Sara. Why must they scroll graffiti everywhere? I usually just walk past without looking. Anyway, I hope this construction company restores Villa Sara to some of its former glory. Believe me, the wreck you see isn't how this house used to look. There was a verandah on the second floor. It was a pretty little house. My neighbourhood is the only part of Madrid where you can find these little row houses from the 19th C.
On Friday I was reminded of the Betty Boop cartoon in which she goes to the country to get away from all the noise of the city, only to return to the noise of the city, since, for her, it's more bearable than the noise and bugs from the country. About 1 p.m., the time I'm having lunch, workmen started digging up the street with a jackhammer right outside my windows. So I had the noise from the construction of the supermarket across the street, the house around the corner and vibrating floors and noise from the jackhammer. I suppose they've finished with their digging, but the metal boards that were put down so the cars could go over the big ditch they left rattle every time a car goes by, which is every few seconds. People will be out in the street until late at night again as the bullfights continue. Noise! Noise!
Our lovely spring weather is hiding again. I even put on a hat when I went out earlier, and I'll be putting on the heating before I take a shower. Wednesday it rained really hard in Madrid and has rained every day since. So much rain in May is quite atypical as is the snow in the mountains. No worries. I know it'll soon be too hot for comfort.
That's about it for me. Hope everyone has a good week.
Last week I mentioned homemade air fresheners, so here's the recipe I use to make them. First a few words of advice:
- If you're prone to headaches, essential oils can make them worse, so maybe you'll want to use the minimum amount of oil drops the recipe calls for.
- Use small containers, like baby food jars, because larger ones may promote mould (mold) even with the salt. Some people use a dash of vodka instead of the salt.
- Don't pour any of the gelatin down the sink as it will cause a blockage.
Ingredients
4 packages of unflavoured gelatin
2 cups water
food colouring
essential oils
1 tablespoon salt
wooden/plastic sticks (like for ice-cream, for stirring)
First put one or two drops of food colouring in each container. The size jar I used made 4 air fresheners, but yours may only make 3, so prepare 3 jars. Then add between 10-20 drops of essential oil in each container.
Next place 1 cup of water in a pan and bring to a boil; add gelatin and salt and stir with a wooden spoon until gelatin is completely dissolved. Add 1 cup of cold water and pour into your prepared jars and stir to mix.
Your air fresheners will soon gel. These are especially good for small spaces like bathrooms.
My favourite oils are lemongrass and citronella, both of which are anti-mosquito, but you can use whatever oils you prefer.
Hope everyone where today is Mother's Day is enjoying your day. For those of you who believe in prayer, I ask that you remember my friend Judy and family. Judy lost her brother-in-law to cancer this past Thursday. She was going to the States this month for her great-niece's graduation, but, unfortunately, had to go sooner.
Here's hoping for a good week for everyone. Wednesday is a holiday in Madrid though I'll have to work some. It's a day when most usually we get a bit of rain thanks to St. Isidro, whose holiday it is, and also marks the beginning of the bullfighting season and crowds of people and the noise they make in my area. ¡Olé!
Call me lazy, but I've enjoyed my unexpected 5 days off immensely. Tuesday was a holiday in many countries of Europe (the day we celebrate Labour Day or May Day ) and then Wednesday was the holiday that Madrid celebrates every year to commemorate the uprising of the people of Madrid in 1808 against the occupation of French troops. That leaves Friday as a working day in theory. One of my classes was going to the village and the other to Prague, so an extra day for me to do what I wanted.
Last week I posted a photo of a table runner that I found on Pinterest and liked, especially for the summer when I hate the idea of having to iron tablecloths. I'm pleased with how it turned out, and think it looks nicer than it does in the photo. I had a few of the doilies and the rest I finally found in a Chinese shop, which are our Dollar Stores. There's a new one in my street and they actually sell crochet table runners, or dresser scarves as we used to call them. I finally found the rounded ones in what some call the 'Friendly Chinese' shop. I suppose it's a culture thing for them to be gruff and unsmiling. The lady in this shop is helpful and friendly. Anyway, I also went and bought a couple of the long table runners thinking that I'd add some of the round doilies I have left over and make a different kind. When I do, I'll add the photo. I know some of you have already seen this photo on facebook. By the way, a friend of mine did make the couple at the top which are supposed to be snowflakes, but I neither knit nor crochet. She was here just a few minutes ago to pick up the keys that I have to her flat. Her key to the front door had broken off. Lucky for her I was at home, as I assume her husband is working today since it's Mother's Day in Spain.
Speaking of Mother's Day, Kathy, who has a page on blogger, and a friend are giving away a nice basket of homemade products for Mother's Day. Tuesday is the last day to enter. She'll be drawing the name of the lucky winner on Tuesday evening, so why not yours? Here's the link:
http://kathyinozarks.blogspot.com.es/2013/04/mothers-day-giveaway.html
That's all from me for this beautiful Sunday. Hope everyone has a great week.
Recently Kris posted some of her favourite pins from Pinterest for the week. This is one that I found via a friend and absolutely adore. I like it so much that I'm hoping to be able to make it. It's simply doilies sewn together. The only problem is I only have a few doilies, and, as I don't crochet, have to rely on finding them already made. I've checked in a couple of Chinese shops. Although the one in my street has them, they're not the round kind but the elongated ones. Since I have an extra day off this week, I hope to go looking for them in other shops, i.e. if I'm not too lazy or there's a big snow or something else which hinders my search.
I'm only halfway joking about the snow. I'm almost certain that there is snow in the mountains of Madrid, and I've put the heating on today. Usually the weather in Paris is worse than here, but I saw yesterday it was warmer there. I haven't looked today. I can't remember the year, but we had snow in Madrid at the beginning of June when I lived in the rented flat not far from where I now live.
Yesterday when I went out to do a bit of food shopping that I usually do on Saturday afternoon, the supermarket that I go to was jam packed. I have no idea why there were so many people there. It seemed that everyone was pulling around baskets full. I hope there's not supposed to be some kind of strike that would affect the food supply. The centre of town suffers enough from protests of some sort just about every week.
Hopefully this week I'll get round to making some bread. I am going to make a shepherd's pie for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow, so here's hoping everyone has a good week. Happy May Day!
P.S. Has everybody who has come from Multiply heard that it was closing permanently in May?
If you remember, last weekend was our first weekend with fantastic weather - no rain, and I was happy because I could finally clean my filthy windows. By Tuesday we were up to 31º C (getting close to 90º F). On Thursday, my student Álvaro wanted to put on the air conditioning. I know I didn't convince him, but I told him he was exaggerated. He's one of those kids you'll see out without a coat in the cold of winter. His is also one of the houses that I go to that has the central heating on too high. The only advantage I can see to central heating for an entire block of flats is you can dry your clothes when it's raining. That's what I did when I lived in a rented flat with central heating, and I always had to leave a window or two open in winter. Today I'm sure some of the older people will be complaining they're cold in their houses if the heating has been turned off. It's about 16ºC (60º F) outside - a pleasant temperature.
On Friday I was having coffee after class with Cielo whose birthday it had been earlier on in the week. I'd made her some of my homemade vanilla extract, gave her a homemade brooch and a measuring cup. I told her that Álvaro had told me he was going to do a course in Ireland and his mother had just told him he would be going on 28 August. Cielo asked me how Maria, the mother, was. As there were so many family members in the flat, I said I hadn't talked to her. She's seldom there when I am anyway. That's when Cielo said, 'So you don't know that María's father died on Sunday night from carbon monoxide poisoning?' Her family had had the gas taken out about 10 years before because they feared something like this would happen. Apparently the gas seeped into their flat from another that must have had a leak. Fortunately María's mother was able to get help from the neighbours before she was overcome too. My photo shows the free newspaper I download during the week, but don't always read. However, I had read Monday's edition and the story was there though no names were mentioned. It only said that one of the neighbours had realized that something was wrong. Prayers are appreciated for this family. I really don't know what I'm going to say when I go tomorrow. I didn't find it strange that so many people were there as they often visit. I saw my horoscope this morning and it advised me to be grateful for the small things and the bigger ones would take care of themselves. Good advice.
I'm grateful to those who read this and hope your week is a good one.
This past week I was doing oral practice of questions with the word favourite (British spelling, Blogger) in them with one of my little students. One of the questions was 'what's your favourite word?' The first thing that popped in my head was 'home'. Later on while on facebook, I came across this cartoon, and have now decided that cowabunga is my favourite. Cowabunga! Spring has arrived. Cowabunga! I'm happy that today is the second day I can say my windows are clean and I don't have to look out through all the spots to see. Cowabunga! I've just come in from a walk and am wet, but not from the rain. It's because I wore a long-sleeved jersey and a jacket in 24º C (about 75ºF) weather. I know I put on too many clothes, but I couldn't convince myself to take off my jacket and carry it.
The origin of the word cowabunga is really interesting. I hope some of you remember 'Howdy Doody' and his friends like Chief Thunderthud whose first word was always 'cowabunga' although it was spelled 'kowabonga'. I learned other interesting facts about one of my favourite childhood programmes, such as it being a pioneer for early colour TV, not that my younger brother, sister and I would have seen it in colour. We still had a black and white set when the Beatles first made their appearance on TV. Howdy Doody fans who later became surfers took over the word cowabunga for themselves, and now the cartoon has aliens using it! Cowabunga!
As for the word 'escraches', I don't know if it is to be found in the Royal Academy of Spanish dictionary. Nevertheless, not a day goes by without hearing it or reading about it. It's a word that was first used in Argentina to refer to the people who went to a politician or dirty war criminal's workplace or home and began a protest, sometimes posting a description of this person's 'crimes' on the walls outside his home. Some of us remember all those people who 'disappeared' in Argentina during the dictatorship. In Spain the 'escraches' are members of an anti-foreclosure group and direct their protests against the ruling Popular Party. The other day the Vice President, who has a 17-month-old child, said she could understand them heckling her in her workplace, but not in her private life, and I agree 100%. Yesterday I saw a video of an 8-year old 'escracher' following a politician around in the Tennessee Capitol building. I felt bad for the little girl. She couldn't have understood what was going on. I know she was prompted to say what she did. Unfortunately, in the case of escraching here, I fear that one of these days a tragedy is going to happen at such a protest.
Hope my fears don't pan out, but I do hope everyone has a cowabunga week.
I was going to do a post on computers, but I think I've found a much more exciting subject about something that I'm going to try.
As I've mentioned before, some of my old workmates and a new friend or two get together once a month to have lunch and a chat. Yesterday our friend Judy was talking about
how she'd started doing oil pulling and the benefits she was feeling
from it. Have you ever heard of oil pulling or oil swishing? I hadn't until I looked it up on the internet. According to one
of the links I found and will include here, it's 'a safe, cheap and
gentle do it yourself home remedy that cures and prevents diseases and
extends your healthy life' by ridding your body of toxins which have
accumulated.
Here's what you do. In the morning before you have breakfast, take a tablespoon of either sunflower seed or sesame seed oil and swish it around in your mouth for 15 to 20 minutes - not the easiest thing to do, but I can do it. Then spit out the oil, rinse out your mouth and brush your teeth if you like. I'll wait and brush after I've eaten. Doing this every morning supposedly cures or helps a number of illnesses, not only mouth problems. One of my friends on FB has complained about the side effects of the medicine she has to take for asthma. Oil pulling has no side effects and if it helps! So here is one of the links I've found. See if oil pulling would be interesting for you.
http://www.oilpulling.org/oil-pulling/
For once, I didn't really feel the hour that we lost last week.
I tried to keep busy all day so as not to think about it. I made a big
meatloaf (maybe with some horse meat?LOL) and took half of it round
to my friends' when I went to check on their cat for the last time on
Sunday. I've seen photos of people enjoying nice spring weather. Well,
we haven't yet! I still have the heating on and have seen only clouds for this coming week. March was the rainiest March we've had since 1947, and, as predicted, allergies are soon going to get bad - a reason to try oil pulling.
Hope you have some good weather and a good week ahead.
